American Cinematographer - August 1987 - 78

Clockwise:

Eagle V
"beauty" pass; Eagle

V

reverse

blue

screen matte

pass,

Honeymoon Coupe
"beauty pass;"
magnetic beam, live
action blue

screen

element

shot

as

unreduced and

masked; and

Honeymoon Coupe
reverse

blue

screen

matte pass.

and 'chew' (kind of a

flickering effect)."
Depth-of-field is one of the
basic tenets of blue-screen photography.
Even

a

little flicker

can

send

a

visual

signal to the audience that a scene is a
composite. And, that's all it takes to
ruin an illusion. Until very recently, a
visual effects crew shooting in a situa¬
tion like this would almost certainly
have used Eastman's color negative film
5247. Some 200 footcandles of key
would be needed for a T-4.5 exposure,
and obviously much more for stop T-8
or T-11 - not an unusual requisite.
The problem is that the cul¬

of filmmaking has changed consid¬
erably during the past half a dozen
years. Most cinematographers are now
using high-speed films rated for ex¬
posure indices of 300 to 400 for origi¬
nal photography on stages.
"If they have to raise the
intensity of lighting for us to shoot a
ture

blue

screen

element, it takes time and

affects the pace of production," says
Donen. "It costs around $10,000 an
hour to relight a set."

Spaceballs is the first the¬

high speed 5294 and
grain and sharpness characteris¬
tics which come close to matching the
medium-speed 5247 film.
If speed is an issue, why not

be

other direction, McLean is using the
5294 film. No lighting adjustments are
necessary, so the whole flow and pace
of production is smoother and faster.

use the 5294 emulsion for blue screen?
The main problem is crosstalk between

Several techniques were
planned for the picture: A front-projec¬
tion blue-screen using Apogee's award¬
winning blue flux front projector, the
"Blue-Max"; reverse front projection
blue screen, a technique developed by
Erland and Apogee director of photog¬
raphy John Sullivan: a Stewart "T"

the blue and green layers of the film
which causes a fringing effect when

shooting against a blue screen, Erland
explained. There is also a build-up of
grain in the duping process.
"The image characteristics
are excellent for original photography,
but if you are shooting film for an opti¬
cal composite, you are adding at least
one generation to the process," he
says. "Anytime you do this, the grain
becomes more apparent in the succeed¬
ing generation."
Apogee president John
Dykstra notes: "There's no blue-screen
shot that you can make with 5295 that
you can't do with 5247. But, if you can
light for a shot in one to two hours
instead of two to three hours, you have
time to shoot two takes instead of
That has creative impact."

one.

One of the Spaceballs sets
interior of a space ship. In one

atrical feature to make extensive use of
the new Eastman color high speed SA

is

negative film 5295, some 40,000 feet
of it. The special application film has a
recommended exposure index of 400 in
3200 Kelvin tungsten light. It is de¬
signed for blue screen work, and it
features dimensionally controlled per¬

involving several people, the
audience can see moving images
through a window in the background
which establishes the setting. Here's
how director of photography Nick
McLean set up that scene: Shooting in

PS ANSI

the direction of the window, McLean
frames a shot over a character's shoul¬

forations which
standards.

exceed

an

der.

research and development director, says
the new film matches the sensitivity of

The

American

Cinematographer

optically composited. Shooting in the

transmission blue screen; and the
oldest and most basic method of all;
front-lit blue-screen.
matte

Who and what determines
which method is used? "Usually, the

special effects supervisor makes the de¬
cision regarding choice of blue screen,"
says Donen. The idea is to shoot the
scene as quickly and inexpensively as
possible while giving the director the
images that he wants. For example,
there are a couple of scenes with very
reflective surfaces and gold objects.
"This is ideal for reverse front projec¬
tion. Since the beamsplitter is behind
the cast there are no problems with
reflections."

Logistics plays

sequence,

Erland, Apogee's

Jonathan

76

Eastman's color

offers

He is

using the 5295 emulsion
since the background is a blue screen.

moving images in the window will

August 1987

a

part.

"Sometimes, we simply needed the
120-foot-wide, 30-foot-high front-lit
blue-screen because we had a very big
scene," he added. "With reverse front

projection

we are

limited to

since the state of the

art

a

finite

of the

area

current

technology restricts the height of the
beamsplitter (usually a plastic film or
pellicle) to about 10 feet."
American Cinematographer - August 1987

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